The inventor realized, in 1987, an automatic translation system, today known on the market as “Hypertrans”, which is able to operate on Macintosh by Apple Computer Inc. Cupertino Calif. U.S.
At that time translators in DOS systems were known but without analysis of the sentence, that is word by word, and therefore, without big substantial instructions but only using searching in a file and changing with the existing translation from the consultation dictionary, as there was the well known limit of 750 K.
Small sentence translators also existed at that time, but were based on a memory containing a limited number of more frequently used sentences.
At that time there also existed systems for translation with analysis of the sentence, however only on large computers or a mainframe, as for example “Systran” translator system.
Other systems were not known on the market and possible patented ideas had not found concrete application.
After experimentation and placing of the system on the market, this had continuous improvements particularly in the technological field, to be considered today worldwide, as the most qualitatively advanced technological professional translation system in all the combinations of the main European languages EN, DE, FR, IT, ES.
During the years an important improvement was made to the system for interactive translation giving the possibility of memorization of sentences for their eventual reuse as for example “Translation manager” of the IBM “International Business Machines”, as one can also see from the following disclosure of the prior art.
Even if this methodology gave a great qualitative advantage of the translation, it had the inconvenience of the low probability level that the sentence memorized could be repeated frequently, so the system is used only for translations which are repetitive, as for example the translation of the instruction manuals of the machines, etc.
All the techniques known up to now freed the way to post-digiting or post-editing, which in any way had to be made manually by the operator after the translation in the same program (basic translation software) or in any word processing system. The subsequent completion times of a translation of a high professional level involved the sum of the translation time plus the final check and correction time, so, to date the sum of these two times is not competitive with the translation operated directly by a skilled-person who knows both languages very well.
The known system product by the same inventor and known on the market as “Hypertrans” operating on MAC computers of the Apple Computer of Cupertino Calif. U.S., is today a highly professional system of maximum quality, particularly directed to the technical field, such as patents.
It is able to translate with couples of bi-directional modules in any combination of English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and also Portuguese.
This system of maximum professional level is able to supply to the operator, a very high quality grade, but the time required for the completion of the translation in perfect mode, that is machine time+man time (including the check and final correction), is always high, particularly for the final correction in post-editing.
This invention is particularly directed to the reduction of this post-editing time that is the human correction time.
In prior art there exist a plurality of machine translation systems.
Well-known are the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,510,981; Oct. 28, 1993; (IBM Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.);
Regarding a language translation apparatus and method using context-based translation models.
In particular:
An apparatus for translating a series of source words in a first language to a series of target words in a second language. For an input series of source words, at least two target hypotheses, each including a series of target words, are generated.
Each target word has a context comprising at least one other word in the target hypothesis.
For each target hypothesis, a language model match score including an estimate of the probability of occurrence of the series of words in the target hypothesis.
At least one alignment connecting each source word with at least one target word in the target hypothesis is identified. For each source word and each target hypothesis, a word match score including an estimate of the conditional probability of occurrence of the source word, given the target word in the target hypothesis which is connected to the source word and given the context in the target hypothesis of the target word which is connected to the source word. For each target hypothesis, a translation match score including a combination of the word match scores for the target hypothesis and the source words in the input series of source words.
A target hypothesis match score including a combination of the language model match score for the target hypothesis and the translation match score for the target hypothesis. The target hypothesis having the best target hypothesis match score is output.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,701; Jun. 7, 1991; in the name of British Telecommunications public limited company, London, England
Regarding a Language translation system, and in particular:
A language translation system for translating phrases from a first language into a second language comprises a store holding a collection of phrases in the second language.
Phrases input in the first language are each characterized on the basis of one or more keywords, and the corresponding phrase in the second language is output. Such a phrasebook approach enables what is effectively rapid and accurate translation, even from speech.
Since the phrases in the second language are prepared in advance and held in store, there need be no problems of poor translation or ungrammatical construction.
The output may be in text, or, using speech synthesis, in voiced form. With appropriate choice of keywords it is possible to characterize a large number of relatively long and complex phrases with just a few keywords.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,976; Jun. 16, 1992 in the name of Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Regarding an Interactive language conversion system; and in particular:
A language conversion system includes a database of expression patterns in the object language, a relevance evaluation mechanism for evaluating a relevance of each expression patterns in the object language with respect to an input in the original language, a retrieval and identification mechanism for retrieving and identifying from the input in the original language information requested by the expression pattern in the object language required to generate an output in the object language, a selection mechanism for selecting the expression pattern in the object language conforming to the input in the original language depending on the relevance evaluated in the relevance evaluation mechanism, an output mechanism for generating the output in the object language based on the required information retrieved and identified from the input in the original language by the retrieval and identification mechanism, and a control mechanism for controlling operation sequences of the relevance evaluation mechanism, the retrieval and identification mechanism, the selection mechanism and the output mechanism.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,765 filed on Mar. 14, 1995, Machine translation system in the name of Toppan Printing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Claiming:
A machine translation system comprising:
first input means for inputting a first character string written in a first language;
second input means for inputting a second character string written in a second language;
display means for simultaneously displaying the first and second character strings input from said first and second input means; linking means which has first designating means for designating a third character string included in the first character string displayed by said display means, and second designating means for designating a fourth character string included in the second character string displayed by said display means, and links the third and fourth character strings with each other;
recording means for recording the third and fourth character strings linked by said linking means as a pair; and
means for detecting the character string which is most similar to an original character string written in the first language from a plurality of recorded third character strings, and translating the original character string into a character string written in the second language by using a fourth character string linked with the detected character string.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,426,583; Jan. 27, 1994 in the name of Uribe-Echebarria Diaz De Mendibil; Gregorio, Erandio, Bilbao, Spain
Regarding Automatic interlingual translation system.
Claiming
A method for use in a computer to automatically translate a first text based on a source language to a second text based on a different target language, said method comprising the steps of:
(a) analyzing said first text to achieve an arborescent-type clarification on morphological, syntactical and semantic characteristics of said first text;
(b) translating the analyzed text to a first intermediate language, wherein said first intermediate language contains structural characteristics of said source language;
(c) integrating the translated text into an interlingual, wherein said interlingual contains morphological, syntactical, and semantic features of a plurality of languages;
(d) translating the integrated text to a second intermediate language, wherein said second intermediate language contains structural characteristics of said target language; and
(e) converting the translated, integrated text to said second text.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,698; Dec. 22, 1983 in the name of Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, Japan
Regarding an Electronic translator including character input keys for inputting a first language word, a translator for translating the inputted first language word into the second language word, a retranslator for retranslating the second language word back to the first language word, and a display unit for displaying the inputted word, translated word and retranslated word.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,439,836; Oct. 22, 1980 in the name of Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, Japan
Regarding an Electronic translator, claiming:
An electronic translator device for obtaining a second word represented in a second language equivalent to an input word in a first language, comprising:
input means for entering the input word;
first memory means for memorizing a plurality of first words in the first language, each of said first words comprising one or more first letters which remain unchanged regardless of inflection and one or more second letters which change according to inflection;
address means operatively connected to said input means and responsive to entry of the input word for addressing said first memory means to develop one of the plurality of first words;
detection means operatively connected to said first memory means and responsive to said address means for detecting equivalency between the input word and said first letters of respective first words;
second memory means for memorizing a plurality of second words in the second language corresponding to first words stored in said first memory means;
first means operatively connected to said detecting means for activating said second memory means whereby said second memory means develops a second word corresponding to the input word when the input word is equivalent to one of said first words; and
second means operatively connected to said detecting means for indicating that one of said first words in said first memory means comprises a noninflected form of the input word.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,633,435; Jul. 22, 1985 in the name of Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, Japan
Regarding an Electronic language translator capable of modifying definite articles, and in particular regarding an electronic translator is featured in which sentences as stored are modified by replacing one or more words in one of the original sentences with one or more new words and by changing automatically one or more additional words in the original sentence, depending on the nature of the one or more new words entered in the sentence. For example, the one or more additional words may be definite articles or prepositions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,529; Feb. 12, 1987 in the name of Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Kawasaki, Japan
Regarding a Machine translation system
Claiming:
A machine translation system for translating a first language into a second language, which comprises:
input means for entry of an original written sentence in the first language into the system;
dictionary means having at least a first dictionary for storing various words in various parts of speech and their translation in the second language respectively corresponding to the words in the first language, and a second dictionary for storing various words designated as nouns corresponding to words in the first language;
translation means for analyzing the original written sentence in the first language, for retrieving said dictionary means and for executing the translation processing of the input original, when any same word designated as nouns stored in the first dictionary is found in the second dictionary, the word stored in the second dictionary takes precedence over that in the first dictionary in the translation means; and
output means for producing translated sentences in the second language obtained from said translation means.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,021; Jan. 10, 1986 in the name of Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Regarding a System for automatic language translation using several dictionary storage areas and a noun table, and in particular regarding a translation method for a machine translation system provided with apparatus for parsing a source language sentence and for forming a target language translation in which a phrase omitted in the source language sentence is identified, and a word or phrase to be inserted for the omitted phrase is selected from stored words and phrases. For identifying an omitted phrase, a sentence pattern corresponding to a predicate in the source language sentence is formed so as to include not only cases governed by the predicate but also a semantic feature for each case. By comparing the source language sentence with the sentence pattern, a case which is omitted in the source language sentence but cannot be omitted in the target language translation is identified. For determining a word or phrase to be placed at the position of the omitted phrase, the nouns having appeared in the source language text is stored in a noun, together with the semantic feature, gender, person and number of each noun is searched for a noun having the same semantic feature as the omitted phrase. When a target language translation of the source language sentence is formed, a pronoun having the same gender, person and number as the omitted phrase is used as a target language equivalent for the omitted phrase, and thus a target language translation which is grammatically correct, is obtained.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,788; Jun. 25, 1987 in the name of Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, Japan
Regarding a Translation machine system with splitting and combining of sentences.
And claiming:
An electronic translation machine system for translating multiple sentences from a source language to a target language comprising:
input means for inputting a plurality of source sentences;
first buffer means in communication with said input means for storing said source sentences;
position designation means coupled with said first buffer means for designating a division point separating a selected source sentence into parts and for inserting a position designation symbol in said selected source sentence;
splitting means in communication with said first buffer means for scanning said selected source sentence for said position designation symbol and, once encountered, for splitting said selected source sentence into parts and for storing said parts in said first buffer means; and translation means for translating the parts of said selected source sentence stored in said buffer means from said source language to said target language.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,684; Dec. 31, 1990 in the name of Trans-Link International Corp., Honolulu, Hi.
Regarding an Automatic text translation and routing system,
Claiming:
A machine translation system comprising:
a machine translation module which is capable of performing machine translation from input text of a source language to output text of a target language, said machine translation module having a plurality of target language submodules for performing machine translation into a plurality of different target languages;
a receiving interface for receiving via a first telecommunications link an electronic input which is divided into pages,
said input pages including a cover page having predefined fields containing system information therein and at least one text page in a source language, wherein said cover page includes at least a first predefined field designating an address of an addressee to which translated output text is to be sent, and a second predefined field designating a selected one of the plurality of different target languages into which the at least one text page is to be translated, and wherein said receiving interface includes a recognition module capable of electronically recognizing the address of the addressee designated in said first predefined field of the cover page of the received input pages, and the selected target language designated in said second predefined field of the cover page;
a sending interface for sending output text generated by said machine translation module to an addressee via a second telecommunications link; and
control means coupled to said receiving interface, said machine translation module, and said sending interface for recognizing the address and target language designated in said predefined fields of said cover page, for controlling said machine translation module to generate output text of the designated target language from the input text of the source language, and for operating said sending interface to automatically send the translated output text via the second telecommunications link to the designated address recognized from said predefined fields of said cover page.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,151; Feb. 26, 1993 in the name of Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.
Regarding a Method and system for translating documents using translation.
Claiming:
A computer system for translating a source language document written in a source language to a target language document written in a target language, the source language including a multiplicity of source terms and the target language including a multiplicity of target terms, the computer system including a display screen, the source language document, a product glossary having a plurality of source terms from the source language and a plurality of target terms from the target language, each source term being associated with the corresponding target term which translates the source term into the target language, the computer system comprising:
means for producing a translation screen portion on the display screen, the translation screen portion including a current insertion point;
means for displaying the source language document on the translation screen portion;
means for comparing each of the plurality of source terms from the product glossary with the source terms in the source language document;
inserting means for inserting a character adjacent to the source term in the source language document, in response to each comparison by the comparing means which produces a match between one of the source terms in the source language document and one of the source terms in the product glossary;
means for associating in an index file the inserted character with a target term from the product glossary that translates the matched source term from the source language into the target language;
means for inputting an insert target term command which contains a translation request character corresponding to the inserted character;
means for retrieving the translation request character from the insert target term command;
means for retrieving from the index file the target term associated with the retrieved translation request character; and
means for inserting the retrieved target term on the translation screen portion in response to the insert target term command.
The drawbacks of the state of the art consist substantially in the fact that the current systems or translation methods do not allow the operator to reach a suitable working performance with high quality level translation without a very long time detriment for the necessary correction work of the skilled man, and in particular, we have observed that as the automatic translation, or semiautomatic translation, namely for fragments or sentences, it is never perfect, and has a lot of errors, and one loses a lot of time to correct the text in post-editing to adapt it to an acceptable quality level.
Further, even if one provides a translation for fragments or sentences or paragraphs in continuous succession (machine-aided translation or interactive translation), one still loses a lot of time for corrections, and also, repeated corrections must be made for the repetition of the same type of translation mistake, as a computer will endlessly repeat the same mistake, unless the programmer who has supplied the operating instructions to the program intervenes.
The operator unfortunately cannot intervene in the programming system of which is equipped with the respective translation engine.
But even if the programmer could intervene, the time required for reprogramming or teaching of the new case, the check of the functionality and the advantage that one wants to obtain therefrom become inadmissible.
In fact, the mistake generated by the computer in the translation is likely to derive as an incorrect or ambiguous exposition, as it is well known that when the human being writes he does not think about the rules, but writes on impulse without considering the ambiguities and the plurality of meanings for the same word or expression, and such cases of not respecting the rules are innumerable and always increasing.
Consequently wanting to foresee and encode everything is impossible for the large number of possible combinations.
When a text already edited is checked, the correction time is therefore always high even if there are automatic search replace engines.
In fact, the current automatic search and replace engines require the operator to manually input the correction each time, manually selecting the specific text to be corrected.
The quality of the search and replace often generates other errors due to the necessary adapting of what has been changed in the specific context in said position, being many times obliged to adapt the changing portion in accordance to the preceding text portion and to the following text portion.
Todays, the systems for translation are very fast and require a time lower than reading the text to translate (e.g. ten pages few minutes): The quality of the resulting translation by automatic translation is not acceptable for the skilled man, and it needs a lot of time for correction (e.g. for 10 pages 4-5 hours), and this is because the skilled-translator man, always needs time to read, interpret, and then check if the automatic translation system has made good or bad corrections, and then make corrections to what has been translated automatically.
Therefore a lot of expert translators prefer to renounce automatic translation because they use more time to correct than to do a direct translation without the use of the automatic or semiautomatic translation.
The problem of the reduction of the translation time at a parity with the best resulting quality from the human translation is always in need, particularly for the current globalization of the markets and unification of the people who speak different languages.
Consider for example the global communications, laws, patents, etc, where the quality of the translation should be at a maximum level.